LA PUENTE — On the hillside above Sal and Marianne Reyes’ house, a drainage ditch that is supposed to help prevent mudslides sits in need of repair.

The city wants it fixed before the rains come, but the repairs are the responsibility of the homeowners on whose property the damaged ditch sits.

A mudslide crashed through the Reyeses’ home on Roundabout Drive in February. They repaired their home, but the hillside is still unstable.

A concrete drainage swale running along the hillside is exposed, with no soil underneath, La Puente City Manager Hal Ledford said.

An initial land survey showed the swale is on the neighboring property, owned by the Torrez family, and the city has advised the homeowner of his responsibility to restore stability.

But the city learned Monday that the private surveyor may have made an error, so La Puente must determine where the property line sits, Ledford said. The city wants her family to pay, but they haven’t given them any information, said Lorena Torrez, 26.

“They don’t care if people have money or not,” she said. “The city worries about getting it fixed but they don’t worry about us here.”

Jose Torrez, 48, Lorena’s father, said the city should pay for the repairs because he already pays taxes. Also, the city wants to charge him money every time they come out to look at the hillside.

He is waiting for an engineering report and has workers lined up to handle the job, Torrez said.

The family has until Wednesday to start making repairs to the swale, La Puente Community Development Director Gregg Yamachika said. Otherwise, the city will hire an engineer to design the support structure and a contractor to build it.

The council has approved $50,000 if the family is not able to get the work done on its own, Ledford said.

“If (the property owner) is able to fund it, certainly he is in a position to hire whoever he wants to, so long as they are qualified,” Ledford said.

If the city must do the work, it would pay for the cost and put a lien on the property owner’s home to get reimbursed.

“Her family has no way of paying that much money,” said Brenda Gonzalez, 20, Torrez’s daughter. “The mudslide could have been prevented,” she said, “but no one told her family that they were responsible for the drainage ditch.”

She thinks the cost should be split among her family, their neighbors and the city. Sal Reyes said he must wait for the swale to be fixed before he can repair his driveway.

“It makes a mess here when it rains,” he said. “I can’t do anything until this gets done.”

The city can’t pay for the work because it was private property damaged by a storm, something out of its control, La Puente Mayor Louie Lujan said.

“If the city were to pay for every incident like that, we’d go broke,” Lujan said. “That doesn’t mean we don’t want to help. The city has a heart. We have to do it in a way where we are meeting them halfway. We want to help them help themselves.”

Rodney Tanaka can be reached at (626) 962-8811, Ext. 2230, or by e-mail at rodney.tanaka@sgvn.com.